


Making A Choice

by Littlebiscuits



Series: Choices [2]
Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Everything is Complicated, M/M, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 11:21:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14999843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlebiscuits/pseuds/Littlebiscuits
Summary: He just has to cross the river, and his life gets a whole lot less complicated.





	Making A Choice

Rook gets halfway across the Henbane River. He can see it over the edge, a vast, rushing flow of water. On one side Holland Valley, on the other...everywhere that wasn't Holland Valley. An endless amount of things that need to be done, people to save, Eden's Gate property to blow up, outposts to liberate and put back together again. A million things which have nothing to do with John Seed.

It's easy, he just has to cross the river. Then he picks any one of those many things requiring his attention. It's more than enough to keep him busy, to keep him out of the valley, to keep him distracted. Though hopefully not distracted enough to get him killed.

John probably expects him to leave eventually anyway.

Rook just has to get the fuck across the river, and his life gets a whole lot less complicated. The others are used to meeting him all over the place. Two of them have their own aircraft. They probably won't even notice he's avoiding Holland Valley for a while, and if they do - if they do he'll just claim allergies or something.

He stands there for so long that Boomer comes to sit beside him, gives a confused, impatient little whine. Rook drops a hand, scratches his head, just below his ear.

"I know, Boomer, trust me, I know. I'm working on it."

Rook is going to leave, he's going to leave the valley. Just not yet.

He has one day left, and he already knows where he wants to spend it.

 

~

 

Rook goes to the ranch.

John isn't currently there, but he has a fairly predictable schedule for a man that so many people want dead. Rook knows how to be patient, this place has taught him how to be patient, because impatient people tend to get their head shot off.

He steals a bottle of juice out of the fridge and sits down. There's a magazine on the counter, and Rook finds himself reading about light aircraft with no real understanding or interest.

John shows up an hour after Rook, trailing irritation and the faint smell of blood. When he sees Rook he comes to a stop and pushes his sunglasses up. His smile is all surprised pleasure, wide and satisfied, before John packs it away under something sharper. But that first smile stays slightly longer every time Rook comes back, and this is the first time he's realised that. Rook kind of hates that he needed to be kidnapped by Joseph and Jacob to even notice it.

John shakes his jacket off, the one Rook has secretly nicknamed his 'stupid, tiny plane jacket,' and hangs it over the back of a chair.

"Will Matthew be showing up in the future, or did you -" John mimes something that's clearly supposed to be Rook snapping someone's neck. Which he doesn't do all the time, and certainly never with that much enthusiasm.

"I locked him in the bunker," Rook says.

"That was generous of you." John is trying not to smile and failing.

Rook shrugs. It was probably unnecessary as well. Since the last time he'd shown up here the man hadn't even gotten up out of the chair he'd been sitting in. He'd just grumbled 'sinner' at him, and then continued reading his magazine. The guards at the ranch don't even try any more. John should probably fire all of them.

"Though now I have to spend the time and energy retraining him, rather than just -" John makes a gesture with his arms. "Rolling him into a tarp."

Rook isn't going to laugh at that - he tries very hard not to laugh at that. There will no doubt be fewer dead bodies when he's gone for good.

John comes closer, taking in the empty bottle of juice, the magazine. The fact that Rook has been waiting for him, in his kitchen. Which is a new first for them. John chooses not to comment on it though. Instead he slides close, hooks his fingers into Rook's pants and draws him in, kisses him. It's hard and slow, half-open, and there's that sharp edge that always feels like a bite waiting to happen. That sometimes is a bite waiting to happen.

When John pulls back he looks satisfied.

"And what have you been up to. I haven't heard anything exploding for days."

"I'm not the source of all explosions in the valley," Rook protests, though that is a mistake a lot of people make. "Sometimes things just explode by themselves, when I'm not even standing near them."

"Hmm," John sounds dubious. "And yet whenever I want to find you I just follow the sound of things being blown up and set on fire. Usually my things, because you have no manners."

Rook's tempted to ask if John wants to find him a lot. If John will look for him when he's gone.

"If you want my attention." John's fingers slide deeper under his waistband. "There are easier ways to get it."

Which is definitely true, but him and John have always had a 'crash a plane into a silo so I can hunt you down and tie you up in an abandoned building' sort of relationship, not a 'call me up if you're bored' sort of relationship. It would probably be weird to switch from one to the other now. Though Rook could probably find out John's number, just for future reference.

"Nothing much has been happening," Rook tells him. Which is technically true, ever since he'd cut his way through the ropes holding him and escaped from Joseph and Jacob's shack of uncomfortable personal conversations and sinister threats, everything has been strangely quiet. As if the rest of John's family are waiting to see what Rook does, before they start their rampage of kidnapping and destruction again. Though he's not willing to share any of that with John. Rook isn't sure how well he'd take that reveal. It won't matter soon anyway.

John raises an eyebrow.

"It's funny the way you say 'nothing,' because I heard that this morning you apparently sat on a bridge for two hours petting a dog, and then started laughing like some sort of fucking crazy person."

Rook doesn't answer that because, pot...kettle.

"Did you have me followed?" he asks instead. "Because I was literally nowhere near anyone." Rook usually knows if people are sneaking up on him, he tends to make them stop.

John shrugs and pulls a face, because obviously he'd had him followed. Though Rook's not sure if it's a cult thing or a personal thing, probably both.

"From a safe distance, obviously, since the last man I sent to watch you got too close, and ended up dumped at the side of the road with a concussion and three broken bones." John's tone of voice seems to think that was Rook's fault entirely.

"In my defence, he tried to crack my head open with a bat."

John doesn't seem convinced, and that one probably is Rook's fault, since avoiding cultists sent by John has sort of become a theme of their whole relationship.

"This one's smarter, more obedient, he has promise. So I'd appreciate it if you didn't snap his neck and leave him in a ditch somewhere."

It's funny how John makes it sound like Rook's the one who has a problem with spontaneous violence.

"Don't you have anything better to do?" Rook asks. "Sinners to menace, bunkers to stock, unnecessarily suggestive recruitment videos to make."

"They are not suggestive," John complains, and not for the first time, because Rook has found that a very entertaining thing to needle him over. "They're made to lead people to salvation. They speak to people, to their spiritual needs, they're heartfelt and inspiring."

Rook laughs, because he thinks John actually believes that.

"Have you actually _watched_ any of them, because I think you'd be surprised." The last one had involved a lot of hand-holding, and John being earnest while touching people. Which seems to be a recurring theme. Maybe he should try and get John to be earnest while touching him?

John continues to look offended at the insinuation.

"Yes, I have, and the feedback I've received has been nothing but good."

Rook's still laughing when John pushes him against the huge table, and he lets himself be pushed, he lets John uncatch his holster and shove it off across the wood. Then lets him tug his shirt up, and slip his hands underneath. John's hands are always warm, always greedy, trying to hold everything all at once.

He doesn't seem as impatient as usual, so Rook gets to be the one who drags him in, by his stupidly immaculate hair and crushes all the air out of him. He's always liked the lean weight of him, the way John's all hard planes and teeth and enthusiasm. God, Rook is going to miss so many things about this.

"Come shower with me." Anyone else might make that a flirtatious suggestion. But John makes it sound like a demand.

"Are you trying to tell me something?" Rook asks, wondering if he should be offended.

"Yes, that I want you to fuck me in the shower," John says simply.

Which is a better plan than anything Rook had come up with.

 

~

 

John Seed's bed is indulgently big. It has to be a sin to have a bed this big. How has no one called him up on it? Made him atone for this? How has John managed to keep this bed in the face of so much punishment? After all, this bed might be part of the reason Rook keeps falling asleep here. This bed is to blame for making the whole thing between them complicated. It wasn't Rook's fault after all.

He's still thinking about that when John rolls over and kisses him, and that always makes it hard to think, makes it hard to remember why he has to stop this. He lifts his hands, lets John's body slide through them and John sighs against his mouth like he wasn't certain whether Rook would let him indulge. Whether he would get up and leave straight away.

Rook has to wonder how long John has _wanted_ this, wanted Rook to stay, wanted them to be something. When all Rook has done is walk away.

John's still kissing him when the sun comes up.

Rook has officially run out of time.

He could probably still leave. He could probably still take a hard pass on the fucking _thunderstorm_ of crazy he's bringing down on his head, that he's choosing to bring down on his head. It's not easy to get out of the valley at the best of times. There's always something in the road, some dick in a plane trying to put holes in him. He could make any number of excuses about why he missed the deadline. Why he's not gone yet. Why he hasn't followed Jacob's very graphic demand to the letter. Why it's so difficult to stop doing this. Why he doesn't want to leave. Why he's already made the choice to stay.

John Seed is violent, and unpredictable, and he genuinely believes in Joseph's madness.

But Rook might be in this a little deeper than he admitted to.

Which is probably going to kill him.

John keeps kissing him, doesn't speak, though Rook knows he wants to, knows that there are so many things he wants to say. But he gives Rook nothing but the grip of his hands, and the open heat of his mouth, and eventually - once Rook pins him down - the greedy, desperate sounds, punched out of him by every shove of Rook's hips.

The sun is long up by the time they finish, streaks of light as far as the bed, cutting their bodies into pieces. John's watching him with a confused sort of uncertainty. Because Rook has never stayed this long, he's never just stayed with John, after the sex, after the fighting. It's almost like John doesn't know what's expected of him now. Rook doesn't know either, if he's being honest, this isn't exactly a normal relationship. He doesn't know what exactly happens now.

He doesn't hurry out of the bed for a change, he slides free slowly, finds his jeans on the floor.

"If you want to eat before you go, I could make something." John says it like he doesn't expect Rook to say yes, but part of him needs to try anyway, part of him always needs to try. Even though Rook thinks John hates himself for it sometimes.

"I can't," Rook tells him. "I have to meet Grace this morning."

John doesn't look surprised, he doesn't try to _make_ him stay. He just watches Rook dress with a sort of frustrated displeasure. He doesn't move from the bed, a stretch of ink and scars in white sheets, hair a mess of fallen lines. Rook has never really taken the time to look at him like this before, he has no idea why, John is more than worth looking at.

Rook belts his jeans, finds his shirt by the door and puts it on. He's feeling weirdly reckless now the decision has been taken from him. He doesn't know how this is going to work. How he's supposed to save the county, deal with the Seeds, manage not to get his balls chopped off by Jacob, keep whatever this thing is between them, without everything else burning down around him. Half the people he knows are going to hate him for it.

"But I'll come by early tonight, we can eat together if you want," Rook says, and he tries to make that sound casual but isn't sure that he manages it.

John blinks at him, as if Rook has said something in a language he doesn't understand.

Rook takes the opportunity to lean in, still holding one boot.

"And if you could manage not to flay anyone today, that would be amazing." Rook kisses him, and John is strangely still for a moment under the pressure, before he sighs and opens his mouth. Because this is something else they don't do, they don't kiss each other goodbye, and even if they did, it wouldn't be like this. They've never kissed each other like this.

Eventually John eases back far enough to look at him, as if to check whether he's _serious_. Because Rook thinks that John has probably been expecting him to leave for a while. He's not prepared for exactly the opposite. But he must find whatever he's looking for in Rook's face, because it makes him lean closer and lift a hand to the back of Rook's neck. It pushes into Rook's hair, slow and indulgent, like he's planning to enjoy this new and unexpected permission he's been given.

"There are no confessions today," John says quietly, smiling like he's won something.

Just before Rook pulls away, John's hand closes in his hair, holds him close to his mouth.

"And you will not be late," John says, biting each word out. "I don't care if the whole fucking county is exploding. You will not keep me waiting."

John doesn't say what will happen if he does, but it will probably be painful.

"Well I think it would be rude to eat dinner while the whole county explodes around us, but ok."

John tugs at Rook's hair hard enough to hurt, then laughs and lets him go.

Rook still climbs out the window though.

Old habits die hard.


End file.
